The Photo Wall is a vague idea I've had at the back of my head for ages, and The Forest seems like a great place to try it …

I want to start a Photo Wall. A poster would invite people to add their own photos to the wall.

I would like to set a Theme of something like "Edinburgh Streets" or "The Great Outdoors" or "Public Places". The idea would be to encourage people to look at things around them and notice beautiful things in everyday life. Hopefully they would be photos everybody could engage with, and not just be random people at parties (that kind of thing is great if you know the people involved, not so much if you don’t). Its been pointed out there are lots of international folk at the Forest, so maybe a non-Edinburgh theme would allow lots of cool photographs from home.

To start the wall, I would find several photographers who could give a number of shots. Right from the start, there would be a mix of styles and subjects, hopefully making others less intimidated about posting their own work.

In general it would be anonymous; photographers could write there names on the back of their prints if they wanted but there would be no "Photographs by " signs … The idea is to encourage everyone to have a go.

When the wall started to fill up, it could be fun to switch to a "Take One, Leave One" policy - like the library.

So, hopefully something cool to look at and something that encourages people to get involved in photography!

I've mentioned this to Bill and Alice from Visual Arts and Danny and Caroline from the Darkroom, and in general they seem to think it could be good. The stairs going down have been suggested, but I'm told the drawings there are new so maybe not. The gold room was also suggested; this could be a good possibility.

Costs would be almost none; use café resources to make some posters and keep a steady supply of small blobs of bluetak on the walls.

I'd like to take this on and get it going … so I'll keep mentioning it to people till I'm told to shut up Any thoughts?

there is about to be a photo exhibition in the gold and main rooms, so it cant really sstart there right now. but it may be able to be there after this upcomming exhibition - it is for the 'visual arts working group' to discuss.

i particualry like the idea of photo swapping, sounds exciting... do you think it could work?

0 x

Maybe it could work? But it will be a kaleidoscopic blend of mysterious shadows and rainbow hued-dreams seen through compassionate tears.

Bill and Alice did mention the other exhibition, that's cool, I'm in no particular rush. I'll talk to them.

I've never done this before, so I've no proof that it will work. The closest I've got is several years ago when I had just moved to Reading and didn't know anyone there - I printed some of my good photographs and offered them to people in pubs as a way to break the ice and get chatting, and that was very popular. Whether people will willingly give as much as they take I don't know, but I think with the rise of high quality cheap digital cameras and camera phones a lot of people have taken good photographs they would like to do something with. Why not this?

i think it could definately work on one of the walls in the golden room. would it clash with the current exhibition up there now? i don't think it would but others may disagree. love the idea.....visual arts meeting on thursday the 1st or march 6pm....there or sq...

Cool, hope the music night went well yesterday, I never made it upstairs, sorry

Taking down the mirrors in the gold room would be a good place for it to start, I'm happy to do that

It may be ok with the present exhibition but the room might start to look a bit busy. If the present exhibition is only on for a few more weeks anyway I can wait? We'd need to give the starting photographers some time to get the their prints sorted anyway.

How about settling on "Public Places" as a theme? That would open up lots of interesting photos of both Edinburgh and foreign places, and is still wide enough to allow people to play with it a bit.

I liked your original 'edinburgh streets' idea, James. is there a danger with 'public places' that only a tenuous thread can be drawn between the pictures? I mean, photos are only ever of a public or private place. Do we include public interiors? photos of people in front of the eiffel tower (tim wins this category hands down)? we can have a theme that invites suprirse, e.g. for edinburgh streets encourage pics of unknown parts of town that'll look foreign to folks coming in, and make them ask where they were taken.

I've had your question at the back of my head for days and can't really decide ... both have there merits. Maybe "Edinburgh streets" would be better, it would produce something more coherent that fitted into the cafe well ... anyone else want to donate their pennys worth?

So, after discussion at the visual arts meeting yesterday they seemed to like "public places" ... so thats it. Because I'm really not sure and we could spend ages arguing about this - what the hey, lets just go for it. (This is a policy I sometimes live my life by and only sometimes regret later )

The planned space is taking down the two mirrors in the gold room and using the wall. Photos mounted with blobs of bluetack. I'll use masking tape to put up a neat bounding box, and hand do a wee poster.

So things for me to do:
1. Check with Front Of House working group
2. Contact all photographers and get prints from them.
3. Then come in one day and take mirrors down and put up things ... and it will have started

I think this is a great idea. Go for it. I'm really into the idea of artwork that's interactive like this. The idea of mooving the thing to different areas of the cafe once a certain amount of interest has been generated is cool too.